What the Antichrist and Satan unleash in their limited power pales in comparison to the righteous judgments God will use to begin to cleanse the world of its filth of sin and evil. In fact, the earth and its inhabitants will not have encountered God’s wrath with such force since the days of Noah and the flood. But this time the earth will not be destroyed by mere water. This time God’s full measure of cleansing judgment will be poured out in twenty-one portions, each building upon the previous one in intensity and destruction.
Revelation 8 and 9 depict most of the seven trumpets, which will be blown from heaven by seven angels. Their piercing blasts will sound the alarm of further judgment from God throughout the earth.
Hail, fire and blood (Rev. 8:7)
Upon the first trumpet being blown, a mixture of hail and bloody fire will fall upon the earth, completely burning up all the grass on the planet, along with one-third of the trees. In 1888 a hailstorm killed 246 people in Moradabad, India, and nearby Bareilly, marking history’s deadliest hailstorm. Considered the largest wildfire in history, the Black Friday Bushfire of 1939 burned through a staggering five million acres (seventy-eight hundred square miles) of Australia’s Victoria State, killing seventy-one people and destroying eleven hundred homes and other structures. In the United States, wildfires in California came close to beating that record in 2020, burning more than four million acres across the state. We can be assured the hail, fire and blood falling from the sky during this first trumpet judgment will claim even more lives and cause far more destruction.
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Oceanic disaster (Rev. 8:8–9)
When a massive meteor, volcano, or fiery mountain is cast into the ocean after the second trumpet, one-third of the seas’ water will be turned to blood, killing a third of all marine life and destroying a third of the world’s ships. How exactly this will happen is a mystery; indeed it is difficult to imagine how something falling into the ocean will logistically be able to wreck one-third of all the earth’s ships. We
can only speculate what this will look like if it occurs in a literal way, and it also remains entirely possible that this calamity could happen in a spiritual sense.
But with changing ocean conditions, what is possible from a natural standpoint is largely unknown. In recent decades, the world’s oceans have been experiencing unprecedented warming, with a growing number reaching heat levels high enough not only to kill marine life and birds but also to produce cyclones and hurricanes strong enough to cause wide-spread devastation. As the ocean waters warm, coral reefs in the Florida Keys also have been losing their color, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching, and 95 percent of the kelp off the Northern California coast has died. Besides the oceans becoming more acidic and inhospitable to some marine life, a 2023 study found that more than half of the world’s oceans have shifted in color from blue to a greener hue, likely due to changing organisms in the water.
Whether the disaster in verses 8 and 9 is physical or spiritual, those living during the tribulation will witness an unsurpassed oceanic disaster.
Toxic water (Rev. 8:10–11)
Another falling meteor will poison the earth’s freshwater supplies upon the third trumpet, causing many people to die.
Darkening (Rev. 8:12–13)
At sound of the fourth trumpet, the cosmos will be darkened by one-third, affecting both night and day and thus the planet’s vegetation and crop supplies.
Imagine a large container of liquid being poured onto a table, spreading out over the tabletop, running to every corner and side, and eventually falling over the table’s edges. If you can picture this, then you can get a sense of how these final judgments, as described in Revelation 16, will be emptied out and quickly dispersed over the entire surface of the earth.
Sores (Rev. 16:2)
Those who received the mark of the beast and worshipped the Antichrist will be infested with painful sores when the first bowl is poured out. The type of sores unleashed by this first bowl of wrath will cause far more pain and affect an even greater percentage of the remaining population.
Marine life killed (Rev. 16:3)
The second bowl will destroy all sea creatures because the sea will be turned to blood.
Water turned to blood (Rev. 16:3–7)
Whereas the third trumpet will make the earth’s freshwater supply toxic, this third bowl will literally turn every remaining body of water into blood.
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Great earthquake and hail (Rev. 16:17–21)
The last judgment unleashed before the climactic end-times showdown at Armageddon will be the most massive earthquake ever experienced on earth. Every city except Jerusalem and Babylon will be leveled, as will the mountains of the earth. Whatever is left standing after the earthquake likely will be destroyed by the hundred-pound hail that follows.
Rabbi Schneider hosts the impactful television program, Discovering The Jewish Jesus, which is available in more than 100 million homes in the United States and nearly 200 nations worldwide. In 2021 he began broadcasting on radio and now airs across America. Rabbi Schneider imparts revelation of Jesus’ Jewish heritage and His fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. Questions of how the Old and New Testaments tie together, and how Yeshua completes the unfolding plan of The Almighty Yahweh, are answered with exceptional clarity. His newest book, Decoding the Torah, is available now at amazon.com.
